Author: NY TIMES

For years, Apple dominated the market for high-end smartphones in China. No other company made a device that could compete with the iPhone’s performance — or its position as a status object in the eyes of wealthy, cosmopolitan shoppers.But evidence is mounting that, for many in China, the iPhone no longer holds the appeal it used to. During the first six weeks of the year, historically a peak season for Chinese shoppers to spring for a new phone, iPhone sales fell 24 percent from a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research, which analyzes the smartphone market.Meanwhile, sales for one of…

Most members of the band subscribed to a live-fast-die-young lifestyle. But as they partook in the drinking and drugging endemic to the 1990s grunge scene after shows at the Whiskey a Go Go, Roxy and other West Coast clubs, the band’s guitarist, Valter Longo, a nutrition-obsessed Italian Ph.D. student, wrestled with a lifelong addiction to longevity.Now, decades after Dr. Longo dropped his grunge-era band, DOT, for a career in biochemistry, the Italian professor stands with his floppy rocker hair and lab coat at the nexus of Italy’s eating and aging obsessions.“For studying aging, Italy is just incredible,” said Dr. Longo,…

M. Emmet Walsh, a paunchy and prolific character actor who was called “the poet of sleaze” by the critic Roger Ebert for his naturalistic portrayals of repellent lowlifes and miscreants, died on Tuesday in St. Albans, a small city in northern Vermont. He was 88. His death, in a hospital, was announced by his manager, Sandy Joseph.The most enduring praise Mr. Walsh received also came from Mr. Ebert: He coined the Stanton-Walsh Rule, which asserted that “no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.”In “Straight Time,” a 1978 film…

Two men were charged in concert attack near Moscow Russia mourned after at least 137 people were killed when gunmen opened fire at a concert hall in a Moscow suburb, and investigators began bringing charges against those they said were responsible.Russian state media reported that two men had been formally charged with committing a terrorist act. The men, who face a maximum of life in prison, were identified as Dalerjon Mirzoyev and Saidakrami Rachabalizoda.There are two primary narratives about the violence on Friday night, Russia’s deadliest terrorist attack in 20 years. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, and American officials…

Mr. Haidt’s writings promise these power players something elusive: a scholarly, social scientific explanation of the crises they’re facing, combined with a Silicon Valley founder’s level of confidence about how to fix them. (Mr. Haidt often sounds like what might happen if the doomsayer Cassandra swallowed Dale Carnegie: alarmed by the catastrophes humans have cooked up, but stubbornly chipper about our capacity to undo them.)Toby Shannan, the former chief operating officer of the e-commerce business Shopify, has called on Mr. Haidt for advice on facing ideological battles in the workplace. He said Mr. Haidt got him through a bumpy period…

It’s an accepted spring break axiom that you can retake a class but you can’t relive a party. Until now, that’s been true of Freaknik, the annual bass-rattling spring break street party that drew hundreds of thousands of Black college students to Atlanta throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Traffic crawled. Music blared. Booties were shaken.“It’s a throwback time of nostalgia when we weren’t all on our phone or always trying to take a selfie,” said P. Frank Williams, the director of “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told,” a documentary that aims to immerse viewers in the celebration when it premieres…

An attack Friday at a popular concert venue near Moscow killed 137 people, the deadliest act of terrorism the Russian capital region has seen in more than a decade.The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack; American officials have attributed it to ISIS-K, a branch of the group.Russian officials and state media have largely ignored ISIS’s claim of responsibility and instead suggested that Ukraine was behind the violence. Ukraine has denied any involvement, and American officials say there is no evidence connecting Kyiv to the attack.Russian authorities have detained at least 11 people, including four they say were directly involved.…

When the weather turned cold in December, Cindy Luo started to wear her fluffy pajamas over a hooded sweatshirt at the office. Wearing cozy sleepwear to work became a habit and soon she didn’t even bother to wear matching tops and bottoms, selecting whatever was most comfortable.A few months later, she posted photos of herself to a “gross outfits at work” thread that had spread on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese app similar to Instagram. She was one of tens of thousands of young workers in China to proudly post pictures of themselves showing up at the office in onesies, sweatpants and…

How many spirits can “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” fit in a firehouse? This overstuffed, erratically funny entry in the 40-year franchise crams in four main characters from the original 1984 blockbuster, six characters from the 2021 Oklahoma-set spinoff, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” and introduces three new occultists along with an assortment of ghosts, poltergeists, horned phantoms and miniature marshmallow men. At one point, a dozen or so heroes amass at the old Ghostbusters headquarters in Manhattan to protect a storage trap of ghouls that has, like the movie itself, gotten perilously sardined. In the scenes where the director, Gil Kenan, who wrote the…

Bodies were recovered, flowers were laid and fingers were pointed on Sunday as competing narratives took shape over who was behind the terrorist attack on a Russian concert hall where at least 137 people out to enjoy an evening of music were killed.President Vladimir V. Putin has hinted that Ukraine was behind the Friday night attack. He stopped short of accusing Kyiv directly, but on Sunday, some of his allies showed no such compunction.American officials have said that the attack appeared to be the work of an offshoot of the Islamic State, and that there is no evidence connecting Kyiv…